


Willing to Try

by AvatarAbby



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:14:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22978969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvatarAbby/pseuds/AvatarAbby
Summary: Adora is disappointed when the girl she is dating has a soulmate tattoo that doesn’t match hers. But maybe her soulmate has been there the whole time and she just needs to look.Based on the prompt, “Your soulmark doesn’t appear till you actually fall in love. Now you have to wait for the other person to fall in love to show if your marks match.”
Relationships: Adora & Glimmer (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra), adora/oc (just at the beginning)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 129





	Willing to Try

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for clicking on my work! Hope you enjoy.

Adora walked into the castle, hoping the no one would notice her. After all that had happened today, she wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.  
From the first time her and Rosie had met in Plumeria, Adora felt drawn to the girl. They had so much in common- neither grew up with their biological parents, they both loved to spar and take rides on Swift Wind. The time they spent together felt so good, so right.  
And then they both go their soulmate tattoos. They didn’t match. Rosie, ironically, had a red rose on the heel of her right foot. Adora had a sword with angel wings on her back.  
Rosie tried to tell her it was a good thing. Better for them to find out now than to stay together and find out too late that they weren’t right for each other. And just because they weren’t soulmates doesn’t mean they weren’t meant to be friends. But Adora felt cheated, robbed. She thought after all those years fulfilling her job as She-ra and helping take down Horde Prime, the universe would cut her some slack.  
Soulmates weren’t discussed in the Horde. You weren’t supposed to focus on finding a partner, your life belonged to serving Hordak. No one ever told her what a soulmate was. However, once she had arrived at Brightmoon and Glimmer and Bow explained to her the concept, Adora was fascinated. She loved the idea that there was someone that was destined to be with her. True, she had a war to win, but she thought maybe after it was all over....  
The blonde didn’t know it could be this hard. She loved Rosie, that was the only reason the tattoo appeared. But they weren’t supposed to be together. That crushed her.  
“Rough night?”  
Adora whipped her head around to see a familiar figure leaning against a column, swishing their tail back and forth.  
“Hey Catra. Yeah, you could say that.”  
“Your date not go well?”  
“We broke up.”  
“Eh, well, was bound to happen eventually.”  
Typical Catra. Adora wasn’t going to say it out loud, but in a way, she was grateful for her friends’ reaction. No ‘you poor thing’ or ‘well at least know you know’. No pity or sugar coating.   
“Yeah, well, I better get some sleep. Gotta be ready for the party tomorrow.”  
The current embodiment of She-ra headed towards her room, and was surprised to see that Catra was following.   
“About that,” the part-feline started, “do I have to go to this thing?”  
“Of course you do, it’s Glimmers’ birthday ball. You can’t just not come.”  
“It’s not like she’s gonna notice I’m gone. I’m only invited because of you. Heck, I’m only staying here because of you.”  
There was truth to that. Glimmer still didn’t trust Catra, even after she switched sides and helped them win the war. Adora couldn’t blame her, but she had convinced the new queen to give her a chance. Both of them were the blondes’ closest friends and she wanted them to get along.  
“Your going. If not because you were invited, then for me. And because I’ve already had the tailors put your outfit together.”  
“You what!”  
“Relax, it’s a simple black suit and it should be ready by lunch tomorrow. You’ll look great!”  
“Adora, I’m not just some doll you can dress up.”  
“Sorry, gotta go to bed, see you tomorrow!” Adora yelled quickly as she ran into her room and shut the door behind her. Through the door she heard Catra sigh loudly and storm off.   
Adora smiled. Some things never changed.  
————————————————————  
Adora was just about ready for the ball. She put on her new dress- a red strapless ball gown- along with gold earrings to match her heels. Her hair was up in a fancy bun and she was ready to party. Despite all that had happened in the last twenty four hours, Adora was determined to have a good time.  
A rapid succession of knocks fell upon her door, followed by Catra yelling, “Adora! Come on, if I have to head down now so do you.”  
“Coming.” Adora opened the door and almost gasped. Catra looked gorgeous. She had taken off her headpiece for the night and was all done up in the black suit the other had picked out for her. While she didn’t exactly look comfortable- Adora could tell by the way she had her hands shoved in the pockets of her pants-Catra certainly pulled the look off.  
“Wow. You look great.”  
“Thanks. You’re looking spiffy too.” Catra turned around, leaving her companion to follow right behind and wonder just what she met by saying she looked ‘spiffy.’  
The party was already in full swing by the time the two arrived at the outside courtyard. It seemed that everyone on Etheria had gathered to celebrate Brightmoons’ queen. The gift table was a mountain high and there were tables filled with food.   
“So,” Adora said, “should we go get some food?”  
“Lead the way.”  
The former Horde soldier lifted her dress to make sure she didn’t trip on it and descended down the stairs. When she turned back to make sure that Catra was following, she found her frozen right where she had left her.  
“Catra? What is it?”  
The other girl put one of her hands into her hair, blushing. “It’s, uh, it’s your tattoo.”  
Oh. The blonde had forgotten that it was still there, and that it would show with the open back the dress had.   
Forcing a smile, she simply stated, “Well, I guess there is nothing I can do about it now. Let’s go get that food.”  
————————————————————  
Something was going on with Catra. All night she had been dodging Adora, heading off in the other direction whenever she tried to approach. She’d been different ever since she saw the others’ tattoo.   
Adora didn’t understand the problem. Her former rival knew she had been dating someone for a few weeks and that it was getting serious. The marking shouldn’t have shocked her. Maybe it was seeing it for the first time?  
Whatever it was, Adora was gonna get to the bottom of it. But not tonight. She didn’t want to ruin Glimmers’ big day.  
And so, the woman sometimes referred to as She-ra partied all night with Glimmer and Bow, dancing, eating, and laughing until they were just about ready to pass out.  
And all night, Catra avoided her.  
————————————————————  
“Why were you avoiding me last night?” Adora asked, pushing her way into Catras’ room as soon as the door opened. It was early in the morning and both were still in their pajamas, but that didn’t seem to matter to Adora, who started pacing the room.  
“What are you talking about? We came together, we left together.”  
“But in between you barely said a word to me.”  
“So I’m not allowed to do things on my own? I thought I was finally allowed to have other friends.”  
“No! You don’t get to turn this into another one of your crusades against me. Ever since you came to Brightmoon, I’ve tried very hard to not make you feel like you are my sidekick. When you needed space, I gave it. When you said that I needed to let something go, I letted it go. So you don’t get to tell me that I am being overdramatic. This is not about me being controlling, this is about you being a bad friend.”  
Catra started getting very defensive. “Why is everything always my fault? If I am such a bad friend, how come I came to Glimmers’ party? How come I even stay here? I don’t have to you know. The war is over. I could leave right now. ”  
“Then what’s keeping you.”  
“Because I love you, you idiot!” The words had flown out of the part felines’ mouth like a bullet, and had struck like one too. Both girls just stood there for a few moments, staring at each other and the mess they were in.  
“You...what?”  
Catra titled their head to the floor. “I wasn’t going to say anything, really. But it’s true. I have feelings for you.”  
Adora believed the other female when she said she hadn’t planned on saying anything. The former force captain didn’t share her emotions a lot. And the blonde could only think of one reason that would make her confess.  
“Turn around.”  
“We don’t have to do thi-“  
“Turn around!”  
The girl sighed, then did as she was asked. Adora then approached her and moved the others’ hair out of the way to reveal the thing she had known was coming yet couldn’t believe to be real.  
Peaking out from the backside of Catras tank top was the hilt of a sword and the tips of angel wings.  
“We’re soulmates.”  
“I swear I hadn’t known till last night. If I had known when we were kids that our tattoos’ matched I would’ve said something.”  
Adora was now very confused. “Kids? You’ve had your tattoo since we were kids.”  
“Yeah, well,” Catra started, “it just kinda appeared one day. Isn’t that what happened to you?”  
Guilt flooded the blonde, and she must’ve not done a very good job at hiding it.  
“You haven’t had your tattoo that long, have you? And it wasn’t me you were in love with.”  
The girl placed a hand on her friend. “Catra, I-“  
“I think you need to leave, Adora.”  
“But-“  
“Get out!” The woman screamed as she dragged Adora out the door and slammed it behind her.  
————————————————————  
Adora couldn’t bring herself to leave her room, not after how she had hurt Catra like that.  
She had been in love with her since they were kids? How is that even possible. True, the blonde had feelings for her best friend during the time they were together as children, but she didn’t know if she would go as far as to say she was in love. More like a crush she would never act on, a feeling she had felt that if they had been together under different circumstances, maybe they could’ve been something more.  
But Catra had been wanting something more even under these circumstances. And she didn’t know how to feel about that.  
Suddenly, a knock came from outside her door. Hoping it was the same person she had spoken to earlier that day, she answered for the person to enter.  
The door opened to reveal Glimmer, already dressed and ready to start the day. “Adora! You have to come see the new staff Entrapta made me for my birthday. It’s got carvings and it’s made of this really rare mater- wait. What’s wrong?”  
“I screwed up, Glimmer. Really badly.”  
“If this is about the vase you broke, I already told you that it’s okay. This is Etheria, objects that date back thousands of years are a dime a dozen.”  
“This isn’t about the vase- though I know you are only saying that to try to make me feel better for dropping it. It’s about Catra.”  
“Catra?” The queen asked as she sat on the bed next to her friend. “You two have literally lead opposing sides of a war. If your relationship could survive that, I think it’s pretty much set in stone.”  
“We’re soulmates.”  
“Oh.”  
“And to make matters worse, Catra told me she’s been in love with me since we were kids. And she was really upset when she found out I never loved her back.”  
Adora could see Glimmer do a lot of different things next. She could see her telling her friend that the tattoo doesn’t mean anything and they shouldn’t be together. Or maybe even tell her that love for the part-feline would develop over time and she should give it a shot.  
She did not expect the girl with the multicolored hair to start laughing.  
“Glad to see my pain is amusing you.”  
Calming herself down, Glimmer said, “oh, Adora, it’s just funny you think you didn’t love Catra during the war.”  
“What!? I didn’t! I never got a tattoo. And I got the tattoo with Rosie.”  
“You can love more than one person. And a soulmate tattoo will only appear when the person acknowledges they are in love. For someone who gives Catra a ton of grief for not accepting her emotions, you sure have a long way to go.”  
“I wanted to take Catra down, that’s not what people who love each other do.”  
“Love isn’t that simple. Yes, you knew that at that time she needed to be stopped. But that didn’t take away all the history and feelings that had already occurred. It just made them harder to live with. Think about it, you were obsessed with Catra, trying to convince her to join the rebellion, saving her even when you knew it could cost you, always placing her as the strongest obstacle in your path. It was obvious to everyone that you had feelings for her.”  
“Everyone? Like, _everyone_ , everyone? Then why didn’t anyone say anything!”  
Glimmer got a sad look in her eye. “It was also obvious that the war was taking its toll on you emotionally. We didn’t want to bring up those emotions, fearing it would only make things worse. And we all thought it was going to run its course. No one believed you two were soulmates.”  
“I guess it’s comforting to know that at least on that we were all together in the dark.”  
“Well, now you know. So what are you gonna do about it?”  
“I don’t know.”  
————————————————————  
Glimmer had left hours ago, but her words still echoed in Adoras’ mind. Had she been in love with Catra all this time?  
No, that wasn’t possible. Just because the two had been friends forever and would do anything for each other didn’t make them in love. She would do the same thing for Glimmer.  
Then again, she had never imagined her and Glimmer never going anywhere without each other, or cuddling in bed like she used to with Catra, or fantasized about them one day having a dynamic similar to the one that existed between Spinerella and Netossa.....  
Oh, sweet Salineas, she was in love with Catra.  
And she had realized it too late. Catra already new she had had feelings for another person and that she hadn’t considered herself attracted to her at all. Her friend wasn’t the type to just forget all that. She had more self-respect than to just accept Adora at her word if she told her that she all of the sudden loved her now. It was going to take multiple conversations and lots of work.  
The more she thought about it, the more she began to realize that talking to Catra wasn’t going to fix everything.  
But there wasn’t another way to try. And so, she knocked on the door.  
Catra opened the door and growled. “What do you want?”  
“I just thought we should talk.”  
“We already did that.”  
“Yes but that doesn’t mean I like the way it ended.”  
The part-feline opened up the door all the way and sat down on her bed. Adora walked over and joined her. She fidgeted with her hands as she started to talk.  
“I don’t think I was honest with you this morning.”  
“Oh no, you were crystal clear about how you felt.”  
“About how I thought I felt. I thought that for me to love you everything between us had to be perfect. For a long time it wasn’t.”  
“Just because we were in the Fright Zone doesn’t mean things between us weren’t good.”  
“But even you admitted that we both had this need to be better than the other. I think I subconsciously knew that even though I loved you, it wasn’t going to work.”  
Catra turned her head and looked into the others’ eyes. “But you did love me?”  
“Yeah. I did,” she said. Then, taking the others hand, she added, “I do.”  
“Then what do we do now?”  
“What we’ve always done. We fight. We make up. We hurt each other. We help each other.   
“The kind of relationship that the universe destined us to have won’t be easy. I honestly don’t think it was meant to be. But I’m willing to give it a try.”  
Catra leaned in and the two kissed. For a brief moment, the world seemed to slow and everything seemed okay.  
“Yeah,” the other girl stated, “me too.”


End file.
